As the season to be jolly approached I was feeling rather glum. I realized as December drew closer that I would not be partaking of baked goodies this year and this made me sad, to be missing mincemeat pies, shortbread, gingerbread and boxes of chocolates. Such is life when one is off milk and wheat.
The silver lining in this grey cloud is that I will not put on the seasonal weight gain. Now that's a very good part of not indulging.
However...a week before December it was my turn to provide the cake for our monthly birthday celebration. In my attempts to be inclusive, I decided that as there was only one birthday person in November I would select a cake she could eat. The search for a dairy and gluten free cake began several weeks before the event.
Rheinland Bakery in downtown Victoria does do gluten free cakes, although not dairy free. They do have rice cookies which are both.
On doing a search I did find a few other places, such as Euphorium Bakery listed at 5122 Cordova Bay Road and Wildfire Bakery on Quadra.
I ordered from Wildfire Bakery due to location. The dark chocolate dairy and gluten free cake they prepared was beautifully decorated. It was delicious too!! Mainly, the birthday girl loved it, which is what going that extra mile is about. Doing something nice for a special friend.
The best part of going to Wildfire to pick up the cake was being revisited by the Cookie Monster. Delicious cookies were lined up on the top row of the bakery display.
As of today I now have in my cookie tin half dozen gluten dairy free ginger cookies and a half dozen gluten and dairy free pumpkin seed and anise cookies. Well, I ate one of the pumpkin seed/anise...and went to cookie heaven. I will be protecting my stash, possibly sharing it with friends who cannot indulge in regular cookies.
Wildfire Bakery has cranberry shortbread Christmas tree cookies, lavendar shortbread and non-gluten dairy free cookies. Soooo....if you're dropping by for a visit over the holidays and want to bring something to munch on, a few pumpkin seed/anise cookies would be welcomed by moi.
I've heard they make great bread too.
Friday, 11 December 2009
Friday, 4 December 2009
The Food We Eat
An interesting editorial from The Guardian--it's also worth following the link to the Scientific American article about halfway down.
Food sustainability: Modified opinions
Historians of the future may mark the early 21st century as the point where the science of agriculture finally broke into public understanding. Ten years of ill-tempered debate over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has had many malign effects, not least adding to public scepticism about science and scientists. But it has had one benign one. It has pumped dye into the veins of the global food business, graphically illustrating the monopolistic ambitions of agribusiness and ultimately, perhaps, its ability to control the very food we eat.
On Wednesday night a debate on GMOs at the illustrious Royal Society of Chemistry HQ in London suggested a breakthrough. Afterwards the feeling was that it was a win on points for the GM sceptics. This is not what was meant to happen: the scientific community, and the government, insist Britain's future food sustainability depends on employing some form of GM to increase yields, as the Royal Society recently argued. But they can take heart: the debate was less a defeat for GM than for the way it has developed. The corollary is that if the government really believes that the only way to increase yields is through GM technology, it will have to fund this itself.
The winning argument on Wednesday was not really about science at all, but about the ethics of a method of increasing yields that delivers such power into the hands of the multinationals. Yesterday the Soil Association published a report claiming that next year's GM soya bean seed will cost US farmers almost half as much again as this year's. Genetically modified seed is, as a technology, intended primarily to benefit the corporations that develop it. Claims that it is the way to save the world came later. This does not necessarily make it a bad technology; it only means – as Sussex University's Erik Millstone argued in the debate – its commercial trajectory is too narrow to provide much in the way of answers to global hunger. It is a technology developed for large-scale agriculture in advanced capitalist economies that has scant regard for other producers or other economic models. It has been accompanied by unsubstantiated claims which, according to independent scientists backed by the powerful voice of Scientific American, cannot be tested, since all research on GM seed has to be licensed as part of the impenetrable defences erected by agribusiness around its expensive patents.
This model excludes all kinds of developments that might make a more significant contribution to food sustainability than merely increasing yield (often by enabling heavier use of herbicides or pesticides). Food sustainability in an era of climate change requires not only, nor even primarily, higher yields, but greater resilience – the ability to survive in harsher conditions and on poorer soils. There is work to be done on developments that would lower the need for high-cost (and often high-carbon) inputs, by for example developing crops grown as annuals into perennials, or breeding varieties that do not require soil cultivation, or that improve the soil by fixing nitrogen.
Here, GM may be a small part of the answer. But it has a mixed record in Asia, where it has tended to enrich the rich and impoverish the poor, and it is unlikely to be any part of the answer to food security in Africa for the foreseeable future. As the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation pointed out last year, there is enough food for everyone. It just isn't available in the right places. Subsistence farmers are cut off from all but the most local markets, and if they take the risk of buying commercial GM seed their increased yield might just lower local prices. They need simpler improvements. And globally the need is for publicly funded science to investigate sustainable agriculture in the widest possible meaning of the word: better farming practices, a viable pricing system and, for the global north, a radical change in patterns of consumption.
Food sustainability: Modified opinions
Historians of the future may mark the early 21st century as the point where the science of agriculture finally broke into public understanding. Ten years of ill-tempered debate over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has had many malign effects, not least adding to public scepticism about science and scientists. But it has had one benign one. It has pumped dye into the veins of the global food business, graphically illustrating the monopolistic ambitions of agribusiness and ultimately, perhaps, its ability to control the very food we eat.
On Wednesday night a debate on GMOs at the illustrious Royal Society of Chemistry HQ in London suggested a breakthrough. Afterwards the feeling was that it was a win on points for the GM sceptics. This is not what was meant to happen: the scientific community, and the government, insist Britain's future food sustainability depends on employing some form of GM to increase yields, as the Royal Society recently argued. But they can take heart: the debate was less a defeat for GM than for the way it has developed. The corollary is that if the government really believes that the only way to increase yields is through GM technology, it will have to fund this itself.
The winning argument on Wednesday was not really about science at all, but about the ethics of a method of increasing yields that delivers such power into the hands of the multinationals. Yesterday the Soil Association published a report claiming that next year's GM soya bean seed will cost US farmers almost half as much again as this year's. Genetically modified seed is, as a technology, intended primarily to benefit the corporations that develop it. Claims that it is the way to save the world came later. This does not necessarily make it a bad technology; it only means – as Sussex University's Erik Millstone argued in the debate – its commercial trajectory is too narrow to provide much in the way of answers to global hunger. It is a technology developed for large-scale agriculture in advanced capitalist economies that has scant regard for other producers or other economic models. It has been accompanied by unsubstantiated claims which, according to independent scientists backed by the powerful voice of Scientific American, cannot be tested, since all research on GM seed has to be licensed as part of the impenetrable defences erected by agribusiness around its expensive patents.
This model excludes all kinds of developments that might make a more significant contribution to food sustainability than merely increasing yield (often by enabling heavier use of herbicides or pesticides). Food sustainability in an era of climate change requires not only, nor even primarily, higher yields, but greater resilience – the ability to survive in harsher conditions and on poorer soils. There is work to be done on developments that would lower the need for high-cost (and often high-carbon) inputs, by for example developing crops grown as annuals into perennials, or breeding varieties that do not require soil cultivation, or that improve the soil by fixing nitrogen.
Here, GM may be a small part of the answer. But it has a mixed record in Asia, where it has tended to enrich the rich and impoverish the poor, and it is unlikely to be any part of the answer to food security in Africa for the foreseeable future. As the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation pointed out last year, there is enough food for everyone. It just isn't available in the right places. Subsistence farmers are cut off from all but the most local markets, and if they take the risk of buying commercial GM seed their increased yield might just lower local prices. They need simpler improvements. And globally the need is for publicly funded science to investigate sustainable agriculture in the widest possible meaning of the word: better farming practices, a viable pricing system and, for the global north, a radical change in patterns of consumption.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Kitchen Scraps
Thank you to EAT Magazine for leading me to http://kitchenscraps.ca/
Spent time laughing and enjoying this delightful site.
Spent time laughing and enjoying this delightful site.
Monday, 2 November 2009
More Gluten-free Bread
You'd think the motivation alone would be enough, but success has not yet been achieved...
With both Lila and Louise avoiding gluten, I have powerful motivation to modify my basic recipes for homemade bread. I've had considerable success with cake and cookies that they can eat, but so far, bread eludes me.
The latest effort to make a recipe suitable for the Lazy Celiac cookbook that Lila and I are assembling has produced something... food-like. Edible but not in that "yum!" category that bread really ought to be. I buzzed a cup of rolled oats in a blender till they were nearly flour (and expanded to 1 1/3 cup in volume), and added a cup of ground almonds and a cup of unbleached white rice flour. The dough kneaded pretty well even if it wasn't as elastic as wheat flour dough. It didn't double in volume while rising, but it did increase a satisfactory amount. It did bake through in a reasonable amount of time.
Ultimately, the loaf was edible even though it was a first effort at gluten-free bread. But it was a rather gritty loaf; a fine, mealy grit that crumbled very easily whether the loaf was fresh and hot, or cool, or two days old and getting a bit stale. I think this mix of "flour" would have been okay for a cake or muffins, but not for a yeasty loaf. An egg could really have bound the loaf together. The next batch I try will include egg. It's hard enough to skip the wheat flour -- I'm not going for vegan as well!
No worries, though. I've liked pita bread, naan and tortillas for years. I should try a flatbread instead and see what results can be cooked up.
With both Lila and Louise avoiding gluten, I have powerful motivation to modify my basic recipes for homemade bread. I've had considerable success with cake and cookies that they can eat, but so far, bread eludes me.
The latest effort to make a recipe suitable for the Lazy Celiac cookbook that Lila and I are assembling has produced something... food-like. Edible but not in that "yum!" category that bread really ought to be. I buzzed a cup of rolled oats in a blender till they were nearly flour (and expanded to 1 1/3 cup in volume), and added a cup of ground almonds and a cup of unbleached white rice flour. The dough kneaded pretty well even if it wasn't as elastic as wheat flour dough. It didn't double in volume while rising, but it did increase a satisfactory amount. It did bake through in a reasonable amount of time.
Ultimately, the loaf was edible even though it was a first effort at gluten-free bread. But it was a rather gritty loaf; a fine, mealy grit that crumbled very easily whether the loaf was fresh and hot, or cool, or two days old and getting a bit stale. I think this mix of "flour" would have been okay for a cake or muffins, but not for a yeasty loaf. An egg could really have bound the loaf together. The next batch I try will include egg. It's hard enough to skip the wheat flour -- I'm not going for vegan as well!
No worries, though. I've liked pita bread, naan and tortillas for years. I should try a flatbread instead and see what results can be cooked up.
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Gluten & Wheat Free Bread
My birthday in May came and went almost 6 months ago. Although I've used the wheels for my kayak, see our kayak blog Kayakyak I have yet to use the Black and Decker B2300 bread machine my partner, John, gave me along with the wheels and other items. The B2300 has a lot of settings for loaf size and crust colour as well as 10 settings for basic, rapid bake I, rapid bake II, sandwich, whole grain, sweet, quick bread, dough, french and preserves.
This Saturday afternoon wasn't booked, which made it a perfect day to unpack the bread machine and use the bag of Pamelas Products wheat free bread mix I'd purchased last weekend at Planet Organic.
I put all the ingredients into the loaf pan, punched the buttons and after 15 minutes the machine started to mix it all together. I washed and dried some dishes by which time the machine was kneading the dough. Then I turned on my computer to check email and the bread started to bake. After 2-1/2 hours John and I checked the bread which was rising and baking just fine. We left to walk over to the mall to run some errands which took an hour. We returned home to the smell of freshly baked bread. I pulled the loaf pan out of the machine, let it cool for a while and began slicing it. One thing I'd read about some bread machines is the bread bakes with the kneading paddles in it and from online comments can create holes in the loaf and trouble getting the paddles out. Yes, the paddles did bake into the loaf and were easily located on the underside. All I had to do was slice the loaf around each end where the paddles were located and gently pull them out of the loaf. This allowed me to slice these ends into about two to three pieces without any damage to the overall slice shape.
The directions for a loaf of bread are very simple to follow. A bag will also make two 12 inch pizza crusts or approximately 7 bagels or two 9 inch pie crusts. The bag costs between $7.00-$8.00, a bit pricey for a loaf of bread maybe. A better deal if one is making the bagels, pizza dough or pie crusts. A product I would certainly use again.
This Saturday afternoon wasn't booked, which made it a perfect day to unpack the bread machine and use the bag of Pamelas Products wheat free bread mix I'd purchased last weekend at Planet Organic.
I put all the ingredients into the loaf pan, punched the buttons and after 15 minutes the machine started to mix it all together. I washed and dried some dishes by which time the machine was kneading the dough. Then I turned on my computer to check email and the bread started to bake. After 2-1/2 hours John and I checked the bread which was rising and baking just fine. We left to walk over to the mall to run some errands which took an hour. We returned home to the smell of freshly baked bread. I pulled the loaf pan out of the machine, let it cool for a while and began slicing it. One thing I'd read about some bread machines is the bread bakes with the kneading paddles in it and from online comments can create holes in the loaf and trouble getting the paddles out. Yes, the paddles did bake into the loaf and were easily located on the underside. All I had to do was slice the loaf around each end where the paddles were located and gently pull them out of the loaf. This allowed me to slice these ends into about two to three pieces without any damage to the overall slice shape.
The directions for a loaf of bread are very simple to follow. A bag will also make two 12 inch pizza crusts or approximately 7 bagels or two 9 inch pie crusts. The bag costs between $7.00-$8.00, a bit pricey for a loaf of bread maybe. A better deal if one is making the bagels, pizza dough or pie crusts. A product I would certainly use again.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Processing
8 Foods You Think Are Healthy ... But Aren't is a fascinating look at "healthy alternative" processed foods by Sarah Irani.
An example:
2. Annie’s Organic Alfredo Shells and Cheddar is one of my all-time comfort foods, but with 670 mg sodium per serving I should reconsider my definition of comfort!
3. GardenBurger’s Flame Grilled Soy Burger, though vegan, contains 500 mg sodium per serving.
It really seems to be that processing is what's killing us--not even whether something is organic or not. When food gets processed, the economic requirements of processing it impose large economic incentives on the processors to adulterate the food. When you have to sell millions of units, you have to do what it takes to sell those units, and that seems to be the addition of sugar, salt, HFCS, etc. All those things that our palates have come to know, love, and expect in our food. So if they're not there, we won't buy multiple units.
The lesson? Work to minimize your consumption of processed foods--do your own processing. Cut, chop, peel, fry, bake, etc all on your own. When it comes to health and the environment, we really don't have a choice.
An example:
2. Annie’s Organic Alfredo Shells and Cheddar is one of my all-time comfort foods, but with 670 mg sodium per serving I should reconsider my definition of comfort!
3. GardenBurger’s Flame Grilled Soy Burger, though vegan, contains 500 mg sodium per serving.
It really seems to be that processing is what's killing us--not even whether something is organic or not. When food gets processed, the economic requirements of processing it impose large economic incentives on the processors to adulterate the food. When you have to sell millions of units, you have to do what it takes to sell those units, and that seems to be the addition of sugar, salt, HFCS, etc. All those things that our palates have come to know, love, and expect in our food. So if they're not there, we won't buy multiple units.
The lesson? Work to minimize your consumption of processed foods--do your own processing. Cut, chop, peel, fry, bake, etc all on your own. When it comes to health and the environment, we really don't have a choice.
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Thursday, 8 October 2009
Turkey Madness - EAT Magazine
As Thanksgiving approaches I'm glad my family tradition is to forego the turkey and wait until Christmas. Luckily my partner John told me his family wasn't big on Thanksgiving so the turkey will not be missed by him either. I'm glad we've made this decision, for one it will be less expensive according to EAT Magazine's article.
Turkey Madness - EAT Magazine - Celebrating the Food and Drink of British Columbia
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Turkey Madness - EAT Magazine - Celebrating the Food and Drink of British Columbia
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